Four Times Emma Ran (And The One Time She Didn't)
by exosolarmoonlight
Summary: Canon alteration AU; Emma escaped being arrested for the watches and never went straight.


**A/N: **

**Rated M for: second degree murder, swearing, implied sex, and alcohol consumption.**

**Hey, lookit that! After 8+ years lurking on ffdotnet I've finally posted something! It's a pathetic something, but still. Congratulations to me~ Congratulations to me~ Congratulations, dear Hallie~ I fin'ly wrote a thing~! (You sing that to the happy birthday tune.) **

**Happy (late?) Thanksgiving, everybody!**

**Disclaimer: Emma Swan belongs to ABC and her creators, not me. (All those little OCs do belong to me, though. You are welcome to use them with or without credit, if you want.)**

**(Also, I'm using this as a bio for this AU version of Emma on my tumblr roleplay account, phantomthiefswan. I am not stealing this from myself.) **

**(Psssst, if you're an RPer, you should definitely come collaborate with me! I desperately need more threads.)**

1;

**_{_**It wasn't intentional.

None of this intentional.

(Oh god oh god oh god fuck- she hadn't- she couldn't- how did- how- why-)

(All she can see is red, unfurling, salt and roses and copper-)

The gun is still in her hand, and she's too shocked to fling it away.

(It was justified, right? Self defense? Was killi- Was it considered self-defense if he'd tried- tried to-)

She was only avoiding being sick because she was pretty sure they could track her from the vomit, somehow.

It was supposed to be a simple trade-off.

He would drop off the money and she'd give him the information.

They'd been working together for a while now.

She should have seen this coming. Why hadn't she seen this coming?

She knew he wanted her; most of her male associates did. They usually took her 'no' and mostly respected it.

This one had pulled _a fucking gun_.

She'd known he wasn't all that stable, but _a gun_.

She'd panicked and pulled faster.

She needed to leave.

Now.

Before someone investigated the shot.

It's a shady alley, but it's not that shady.**_}_**

2;

**_{_**Mark hands her a cold beer with a warm grin.

She hides a giggle behind it, high off his dark eyes, and wiggles her toes under Lisa's thigh, delighted.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Lisa yelps, waving her game controller above her head, deeply invested in the television screen. "I am _winning_. Don't break my con- GOD-FUCKING-DAMNIT WHO THREW THAT BLUE SHELL I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"

Mark winks at Emma and raises his own beer. "A toast!" he shouts over their little gathering. He ignores Lisa's enraged _"Not now! I'm winning!"_ and goes on, "To a job well done. We are _loaded_. We're getting out of here first thing tomorrow."

"And on to the next!" Damien shouts amongst the cheers, nearly three sheets to the wind even though it's only six.

Emma drinks, wishing for something stronger but determined to make the best of the night.

(Mark congratulates her for her performance as this round's frontman, his voice as dark and velvety-sensual as his kiss.)

She wakes in his bed the next day to find her assets frozen and the feds hot on her trail.

She gets out and burns the evidence, quick and practiced, the way she was prepared to do the moment she walked in the front door. She's long gone by the time they break the door down.

It's not the first time this has happened, and she doubts it will be the last.

She just hadn't thought it would happen so soon.**_}_**

3;

**_{_**His name is Darren.

He's the CEO of Entropy Inc. and fifteen years her senior. He's a player with a reputation. He's married. He's a sarcastic little _bitch_ with a wicked, _wonderful_ sense of humor.

(He kisses her like he means it and whispers dreams into her hair; holds her when he falls asleep and opens doors for her; calls her beautiful and calls her strong; leaves her be when she says she's not in the mood and wishes her sweet dreams every night.)

She's draining his assets.

(She considers stopping. She considers putting the money back where she found it. She considers telling him she loves him. She considers asking him to run away with her. She considers giving up the con, settling down here as his secretary.

She considers a lot of things.)

(Then she walks in on him and his wife laughing about her.)

It ends with his company in shambles and his face in the news, 'sex offender' branded across every headline because she was going to fuck his life up anyway, so why not go the extra mile.

She vanishes in the aftermath, forgotten in the chaos.**_}_**

4;

**_{_**She keeps an eye on the agents they assign to her cases. Some of them are good, some of them are idiots, and one of them is _really fucking scary_.

She's only met him once.

He's an older man, divorced with two grown-up kids. He's a fan of classical music and he sings in his community choir. Between him and his ex-wife, he's the stern parent. His birthday is the 24th of January, and he was born in the year of the dragon. His favorite food is french fries, but he only gets them once in a while because he's at risk for heart problems. He has 43 friends on Facebook. In the past five years, he's gone to Hawaii, Bengal, Liberia, and Greenland on holiday, and to Germany, England, Portugal, Singapore, and Egypt for work. He mostly likes horror and mystery novels, but isn't opposed to the occasional romance, if it's of decent quality. He spends fourteen hours a week at the gym.

He's got a mind more brutally effective than a bear trap, and he loves what he does.

(She didn't need to stalk him over the internet to figure _that_ one out. The bureau has handed him six separate case files and he linked them all to her in days.)

(That's only about a fifth of her complete profile, but it's also six times as much as anyone else has on her.)

She meets him in a crowded McDonald's in east Los Angeles.

He's standing ahead of her in line with his son, arguing about their order. They make an odd pair, the two of them.

She'd never realized it, but the agent is shorter than she is. She'd read it in her stats, but she hadn't quite realized what that would feel like, to be an inch higher than the biggest threat to her freedom.

His son towers nearly a foot over them both. He's only just started filling out enough to look 'lean' instead of 'beanpole-ish,' and his wild, dark hair to his father's silver is an even bigger contrast than their heights.

His son is saying, "Dad, really, you don't need the french fries, _really_," and her agent's grumbling back, "If I want the damn fries, _I'll get the damn fries_. You're not my mother."

"I'm not anybody's mother, and those fries are _unhealthy_. They're barely even potatoes!"

"The fries are _good_, is what they are, squirt."

"_Three hundred calories!_ In this tiny thing!"

"Son-"

"Three hundred, Dad!"

The gristly old agent sighs.

Emma watches them, hard knot of something just below her heart. She blames the grease in the air and tries not to look at them much.

(She can't help but wonder if this is how the villain feels at the end of the day, watching the hero's victory in all those stories she loved as a child.)

(She supposes that, in a manner of speaking, she _is_ the villain, here.)

(She shies away from the thought before the tears pricking her eyes can ruin her fifteen pounds of makeup.)

(Looking ten years younger is _hard_.)

When they get to the counter, they order the fries.

They move to the side to leave her room to order while they wait for their food. It all goes fine until she pulls out a (stolen) wallet to pay.

Then the agent stills her with a hand over her wrist. "This isn't yours," he says, gentler than his touch and twice as firm.

Emma swallows, mouth suddenly dry as ice. "Sorry, what?" Her voice cracks pathetically.

He ignores her. "How old are you?"

"E-eighteen, sir." She hates_hates_**_hates_** the quiet kindness in his voice and his actions and the understanding she finds in his tone, and thanks the gods that she isn't actually seventeen, because otherwise she'd be in tears right now, pride be damned.

His eyes strip her flesh from her bones, taking apart her lie in a glance that's soft with pity. "No, you're not." He pulls the wallet from her numb fingertips. "You don't have to go back, but go to a homeless shelter, or a friend's house. Go-"

She can see the moment he actually looks at her, the way his eyes go from her face to her shoulders to hips to feet. She can see the numbers roll up in his head, and forgets to breathe. He's seen that security footage. He's seen stills and blurry pictures. _He knows what she looks like. _

Her heart stops for a long second, and then the hand around her wrist goes slack with surprise.

She takes the opening.

She twists her arm out of his hold and takes off running. She dodges through the crowd and out the door, slamming it open hard that she hears the glass break.

She's running flat out across streets and parking lots and stores, ignoring the pop-and grind of her underused and over-stressed joints. Her only thought is _get away get away faster faster this isn't fast enough _**_he's catching up-_**

(She can hear him in the background, screaming into his phone about how _he needs a goddamn blockade_ and _she's getting away_ and _well where do you expect to find her next? She's fuckin' Carmen San Diego!_)

She finally ducks into the back of a nearby hospital, scraping her throat raw in huge, unfiltered gasps of disinfected air. She finds a supply closet and locks herself in. She puts her head between her knees and tries (and mostly succeeds) to not throw up out of pure fear.

She stares at her pale, clammy, violently trembling hands and thinks, _Boston sounds good this time of year._**_}_**

**coda**;

**_{_**A single cupcake with a single candle; it's only on her table to remind her of her actual birthday, to keep from losing it in her plethora of alternate dates, alternate names.

She lights the candle and stares at it for a moment, searching for a wish, a dream, anything.

She comes up blank.

After twenty eight years, she doesn't think she really cares, anymore.

She presses her lips together and stares at the tiny flame until it's burned down almost half-way before giving up.

_I wish I had a dream_, she thinks, for lack of anything less… _lame_.

Not two seconds later, someone knocks at her front door.**_}_**


End file.
